Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed in general to the field of inertial sensor measurements systems. In one aspect, the present invention relates to a system and methodology for validating measurements from inertial sensor devices.
Description of the Related Art
Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology is increasingly used to integrate mechanical elements, sensors, actuators, and electronics onto very small mechanical structures which can be used to take inertial measurements. For example, inertial sensors may be formed with MEMS devices on an integrated circuit wafer substrate to form various applications, such as a MEMS gyroscope that is used to detect the rate of change of a position variable (e.g., angular position) for an object, or a MEMS linear accelerometer that is used to measure the rate of increase or decrease in the velocity of an object. To ensure that a specific inertial measurement or sequence of measurements has not been corrupted or detected in error, conventional systems will attempt to validate an inertial measurement by using redundant sensors and/or correlations with alternative external measurements. For example, an inertial measurement of a vehicle's movement from a MEMS accelerometer sensor (e.g., vehicle linear acceleration in a given vehicle axis) is compared against or validated with different measures or references of the vehicle's movement (e.g., wheel speed, wheel angle, etc.) which are obtained with separate sensors which are external to the MEMS gyroscope sensor. However, errors and delays can be introduced when assembling and comparing measurement data from different sensors positioned around a vehicle.
Accordingly, a need exists for an improved sensor measurement apparatus, system and method of operations that addresses various problems in the art that have been discovered by the above-named inventor where various limitations and disadvantages of conventional solutions and technologies will become apparent to one of skill in the art after reviewing the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings and detailed description which follow, though it should be understood that this description of the related art section is not intended to serve as an admission that the described subject matter is prior art.